Chanel Roehner stood on the mound having retired 11 straight St. John’s batters. The Syracuse senior pitcher seemed to be in a zone where nothing could distract her, until she noticed blood dripping down her right pinky.

Roehner hit the next batter to stop the streak. As the batter walked to first, Roehner walked toward the dugout, as the blood dripping from her lacerated pinky became too much of a distraction.

‘The ball keeps rubbing (my finger),’ Roehner said after game against St. John’s. I knew it was bleeding, but I was like I don’t want to stop; I’m in a rhythm, but then it was getting really bad. It was on (my ring finger) and started running down my hand.’

The trainer managed to stop the bleeding, and Roehner finished the sixth inning and pitched three more scoreless innings in the 1-0 extra inning win for Syracuse.

Roehner and Brittany Gardner have been workhorses for the Orange (18-25, 9-7) this season, logging 242 of the 283 2/3 innings the entire staff has pitched this year. The two hurlers will look to shut down Canisius (26-11) today in a doubleheader at 3 p.m.

While racking up the innings, Roehner and Gardner have also racked up every bruise and blister imaginable on their fingers. The paramount concern is the blisters on their ring and middle fingers. Their pinky fingers are also a concern but for different reasons. Roehner’s pinky is lacerated while Gardner’s deals with the stiffness in the finger.

‘You can’t throw how you normally throw,’ Gardner said. ‘If you were 100 percent those pitches would be that much sharper. They fall off sometimes just because I can’t put the pressure I normally would.’

Roehner’s blisters have been nagging her all season long, but her pinky started giving her problems a few weeks ago. Gardner suffered her wound against Louisville on April 11.

‘I threw a change-up, and as soon as I did it I was like ‘Ohhh,” Gardner said. ‘I had the same thing last year.’

Gripping the ball determines how much pain they feel. Gardner said rise balls and change-ups cause the most pain. She had to change the grip of her fastball, moving her finger to the side of the ball to reduce friction. Roehner said the seams tear into her skin the most when she throws a screwball.

The pain isn’t enough to sideline the duo for any extended amount of time and doesn’t seem to be affecting their numbers. Gardner’s ERA sits at 2.43, while Roehner can boast a 2.94 ERA, good enough for 15th and 19th, respectively, in the Big East. But the blisters still cause a nagging pain present almost every pitch.

‘Oh it hurts every pitch,’ Gardner said. ‘…I mean it’s a pinky, but it’s not to the point where I want to keel over in pain, but it’s there. It’s a nagging pain.’

Gardner described the pain as a six on a scale of one to 10, depending on the pitch. The two agreed the pain is worse during practice than in game because they are more focused on the batter than their finger.

The only way to fully heal their hands is to allow both pitchers to rest, but that’s what summer is for.

‘It’s just part of being a pitcher,’ pitching and associate head coach Kyle Jamieson said. ‘…In a season like ours you know you’re going hard for three and half months, and then you have the next five months to rest.’

To try to combat the blisters, Roehner and Gardner put superglue or an ointment called New Skin on the blisters during practice so the ball’s seams won’t tear into the skin. The applications help avoid more tearing of the skin, but come with high price of their own.

‘When I put the superglue on I know it shouldn’t be on that skin layer underneath the skin,’ Roehner said. ‘It definitely burns when I put it on. I mean it burns bad. I always joke that I can hear it sizzling. It’s like acid on my finger.’

The superglue is only used during practice, though, as NCAA rules do not allow any substances on a pitcher’s hands during a game.

There are many baseball and softball myths claiming the secret to curing blisters can be as simple as soaking your hands in pickle juice or as extreme as soaking them in human urine. A few of those ideas have floated around the Syracuse clubhouse.

‘For blisters there are a lot of things you can do,’ Gardner said. ‘Put your hand in pickle juice or actually urinate on it, which I have not tried and will never try. So I might go the pickle juice route.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on April 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm